Toku Toy Box: Power Rangers Lightning Collection Alpha 5 & Zordon Gallery

"No! Not that! Not Teenagers!"
"That's correct Alpha."
"I was afraid of that."

10,000 years ago the evil witch Rita Repulsa waged a war against the forces of good, but standing in her way was the mighty Zordon of Eltar! A wise wizard of the light, Zordon and his allies rallied the forces of good for as long as they could, until Rita banished him to a trans-dimensional time warp. Likewise Zordon managed to seal the witch and her henchman away for eternity, almost. Knowing she may escape one day Zordon prepared for her return, taking up watch on Earth from his Command Center with his friend and caretaker Alpha 5. With the original 5 Power Coins in his possession, Zordon would be ready when the time came, to create the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers!

Packaging
As we are all pretty familiar with the line by now, I'm sure I probably don't need to go through my usual list of reasons why it's awesome. Hasbro was keen to make sure these appealed to collectors and fans of the franchise from throughout it's various eras. And they also really pop thanks in no small part to some wonderful box art, lovingly crafted by artist Tom Whalen aka @strongstufftom on twitter. His artwork is breathtaking, and makes these figure's feel like just a bit more of a passion project from the folks at Hasbro. With this release we get a gorgeous group profile shot of all 5 core rangers rather than Alpha & Zordon.

Main Figures
Alpha 5:
Talk about a figure I was unprepared for. I fully expected Alpha to be a very standard release with basic articulation. What we instead have is a really fun and dynamically designed figure. First I have to say, this figure shows off Alpha's colors in a way I never really noticed when watching the series as a child. For the life of me I never put together than Alpha 5 was primarily blue, but seeing it on the figure now it's crazy that I never noticed it growing up. Just in general the paint work and coloration of this figure really are marvelous. I'd say Alpha got a bit more budget for his paint apps largely because Zordon required none.

Beyond paint though, Alpha 5 is a really fantastic figure as I mentioned. Solidly functional in his own right, Alpha does way more than you'd ever expect a figure of him to be able to, and is by far the most well articulated and executed toy the character has ever received. Owing largely to his suit design, Alpha has a wide base of support thanks to those big gold clown shoes of his. Oddly enough they have lots of range in all directions and most of the time you can manage to get them to lay down flat completely on a surface. Alpha also features double jointed knees, capable of bending back well beyond a 90 degree angle, more than enough for fun posing.

Alpha's waist has something a bit different than the standard design as well. Joint implementation is basically the same, though the waist has a soft sort of underwear around it that's flexible meaning you don't really loose any of the range in the joints. Alpha also has the same kind of ab crunch that the rangers in the line do, though his doesn't seem to be as effective. There's lots of range in it, but I find that it never really ratchets into position correctly. However it still works, and Alpha also still gets the same ball jointed upper body the rest of the line benefits from. And his upper body has the same kind of soft flexible armor as the waist giving you lots to play with in the joint. Details aren't perfect on the chest and back but I think are a happy compromise for this figure. My one complaint with the torso though is that the shoulder pads are part of the chest armor, so they can't articulate out of the way when posing the arms.

The arms themselves borrow some of their design philosophy from the female rangers in the line. Lacking bicep swivels seen in the male Power Rangers entirely, Alpha largely relies on his shoulders for movement. But he also features the same kind of 90 degree bend single joint elbows that the female rangers have. It simply operates a little bit better because the joint is thicker and more substantial. This gives Alpha a sort of swiveling elbow joint that looks a bit odd sometimes but for a character like him largely makes sense. And despite large wrist cuffs, the hands have some real range in them as well. Sadly there's no variety for the hands as extra ones aren't included. Each is in a slightly different pose but they're similar enough you won't notice most of the time. The right one has a tight enough grip that you can manage to get Alpha to hold certain accessories such as his included Teddy Bear. Of all things for him to come with (other than Zordon) that's certainly not what I expected, but it's a fun little inclusion.

Finally that brings up to Alpha 5's really unique helmet design. That saucer shaped helmet is extremely iconic and I'm really pleased with how good it looks here. More importantly though I love how it's been implemented on the figure. The head and neck are one connected piece with a ball joint going down into a socket down in the torso. Giving you lots of range for it side to side and allowing it to spin 360 degrees. All in all, you can get Alpha into very dynamic poses, so I decided to have some fun with gallery and let him get in on the action of fighting Putties and Goldar.

Zordon:
Now this may not be the big draw of the set for many people, I suspect that will be Alpha. But I'm sure Zordon needed to be a winner too in the minds of many collectors. In his case though I think he's a bit of a mixed bag. Zordon is a static piece as one would expect. A large disembodied face mounted to the inner wall of a clear tube, Zordon's facial features are roughly based on the likeness of actor David Fielding. This face looks as though it's emerging from the inner wall and is fused to it, looking rather more like a horror movie effect. The tube itself is sparsely detailed, though the blue back panel features a number of sculpted details that don't really need to be present and are unfortunately bisected by a ton of technical and copyright information anyway.

Zordon features a light-up gimmick as well though I suspect I'm not the only one unimpressed with it. A square button on the front of the base activates the interior light, set directly below his face. Intended to illuminate the semi-translucent blue plastic and give him an ethereal glow like he had in show, what this actually succeeds in doing it lightning up basically just his chin. In very low light you can see it hardly illuminates the lower half of the face and a small portion of the upper half. This effect could have been brilliant had they just bothered to put another light in it above the face as well. Unfortunately it instead doesn't work very well as is. I know Zordon is just a face in a stub after all but this could have been executed far better

Final Thoughts
I didn't quite expect to love Alpha 5 as much as I do, nor be as underwhelmed by Zordon as much as I am. Overall though I think each figure in the set balances each other quite well. Alpha is a fun and surprisingly dynamic figure while Zordon is a decently nice static display pieces. Both are welcome additions to the Power Rangers Lightning Collection in my eyes.

Part 2

Between the Tyrannosword, the Dragon Shield and him shaking hands like he's his own main hero, it's clear you had a LOT of fun with this gallery. Love it!

That was always my favorite figure growing up. I remember getting the Command Center with the Alpha-5 figure included and the Shark Cruiser vehicle. My brother and I would always play with that set for days. I’m glad to see that Hasbro included Alpha-5 and Zordon in the Lightning Collection figures.

Ayi Yai Yai, Zordon Of Eltar And Alpha 5, 6, 7, or 8 depends on which one you wanna call it Wow i think Hasbro outdid themselves with these two. Zordon literally lights up and Alpha is just awesome compared to what Bandai couldn't do in 93 or for Samurai.

Alpha-5 looks really cool. I think they did the best they could with Zordon.

Zordon might have gotten the short end but it was a good decision to release these as a two pack

I'm not really sure what else they could have done with Zordon outside of making his head turn left to right slightly or a couple of sound clips. But outside of that it is an awesome looking set.

Alpha beating up Putties and Goldar is the last thing I expected out of this gallery, but man am I glad you did it.

I Hope the stores here get this soon. It looks great. I want this for Display.